


A Perfect Place

by likethenight



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-02
Updated: 2012-06-02
Packaged: 2017-11-06 15:06:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/420226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likethenight/pseuds/likethenight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Shaw's got his army. We're going to need one too."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Perfect Place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sasha_b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/gifts).



> The lovely sasha_b prompted me with this lyric: _Just paint the picture of a perfect place / They got it better than what anyone's told you / They'll be the King of Hearts, and you're the Queen of Spades / Then we'll fight for you like we were your soldiers_ \- and this is what came of it. Well, this and _Better Men_... I may well have got the opening quote slightly wrong; I couldn't quite remember the exact words when I came to write this.

"Shaw's got his army. We're going to need one too." Erik, of course, paraphrasing you, the night he nearly left. And you went along with him, though it was against your better judgement.

Well, it made sense, at that moment. The covert CIA facility was in ruins, the kids were psychically in pieces, one of them was dead, World War Three was looming extremely large above them. Erik wanted vengeance, you wanted peace, the kids wanted to do their bit, and as soon as Erik put the idea of revenge into their heads, of course that was what they fixed upon. And so you stopped insisting that they all go home, and accepted that it was going to be down to you - all of you - to sort this bloody mess out.

Moving back to the mansion, your childhood home, training them up - well, training everyone up, including yourself, and not least Erik - it was then, at that moment that you took your first step towards the future. The Academy stemmed in its entirety from that one simple remark, outside the ruins of the CIA base.

It wasn't an army you wanted, though. Never was, still isn't, never will be. What you've always wanted has been a safe, strong, happy community, integrated with the non-mutants and contributing to society just like everyone else. A place where mutant kids can come to be safe, to learn how to control their powers, to live with others like them. The idea was that they would then go out into the world and live their lives, but an awful lot of them seem to have ended up coming back, or staying put, becoming teachers alongside you. Not that you're complaining. It's so nice to have this great ridiculous house full of people, after the emptiness and loneliness of your youth, just you and Raven rattling around the corridors, chasing each other, playing hide-and-seek, having mock battles and trying to outwit each other. You miss her still, your sister, though you see her sometimes and you've both taught and worked with her children for many long years now. But then her world view was always different to yours.

Hers…and his of course. Erik's. His vision of a mutant Utopia, a beautiful society where mutants ruled and homo sapiens dwindled away into its inevitable extinction. That fundamental difference between you, always standing in the way. It would be beautiful, certainly, but there would be something missing, an emptiness at its heart, without the humans. Not as apocalyptic as Shaw's vision of the future, mind you, but still. Not a place you would wish to live.

And you wonder, sometimes, whether Erik has ever seen the irony inherent in his dreams. The extinction of a species so that another can triumph? Replace the word 'species' with 'race' or 'people'…he said to you once (more than once, if you're honest) that it starts with identification, and then comes registration, detention, camps…extermination. He feared it for mutants, and with good reason, for he had already been through it once. But what if the boot were on the other foot? Does he not see that his plan for the uprising of mutantkind and the extinction of humans has its parallels very close to his own path?

You have never wished for that. Integration is the only way for you; fitting in, living alongside them. Although it's harder now than it was when you were young. A wheelchair does tend to stand out, after all. That was a blow, in the early days, when suddenly you weren't normal on the outside any more. But you learned to deal with the loss of your mobility like you learned to deal with the loss of your heart. With difficulty, with frustration, with anger and pain and self-recrimination, and most of all in silence. There was nobody for you to talk to any more, because your only equal was gone, leaving you with an emptiness inside you and the shattered, broken pieces of what you soon came to realise was your heart; wounds and scars painful to the touch of even a single thought. You hadn't even realised or begun to understand what it meant, what the nature of that bond between the two of you really was, until that awful moment on the beach, when you were lying in his arms, agony shooting bright and blinding up your spine, and it was all his fault, all his fault, and yet still he wouldn't stay. You concentrated on your legs, of course, at the time, but you had plenty of time later on to turn it all over and over in your head and realise the truth.

Plenty of time, and no one to talk to. Moira had her own demons to chase down, the realisation that her bosses had left her to die on that beach, and anyway, you had to send her away before too long. Besides, you didn't feel right talking to her about it. And the kids…were just kids. Perhaps you'd have talked to Raven, if she'd still been there, but she was gone with Erik. There was nobody for you to confide in, nobody to help you understand, and so you had to work through it on your own. You'd never really been in the habit of spilling your feelings, anyway, and by the time you had others to whom you were close enough, you were so far out of that habit that you couldn't have told them if you'd tried. Part of you has the distinct feeling that Logan would make a better listener than either of you has ever given him the credit for, but you're not sure that he would have it in him to understand, given who it is. And the others…well, to you they're still mostly just kids, even the ones who've grown up. Even Hank, whose staggering intellect is probably almost greater than yours, and whose powers of understanding are deeper than anyone gives him credit for, Hank who was there on that beach all those years ago…no, you don't think you could even bring yourself to confide in him. No matter. It's been long enough now that it doesn't hurt any more - or not so much, anyway - and you have other things to occupy your time. Your academy, your friends, the kids you help and teach and train; but not your army, never that, though they've all put their lives on the line for you more times than you can count. The difference is that you never asked them to. Besides, armies are for soldiers, they're for men like Erik whose dreams are still of vengeance against those who broke him. Not for you.

Your dreams are simpler, though perhaps just as unattainable. You dream of a world where everyone can live alongside each other in harmony, and nobody has to die for anything. Then perhaps you and Erik could set aside your differences, stop having to be anything other than the men you are. No longer symbols of those two polar opposites, peace and war, just two men, older now, wiser, but still bonded soul-deep despite everything.

Just the dreams of an old man, who is tired of being at odds with his oldest friend. But without our dreams, what would we be? What would we have, without them to sustain us? So you dream, and you hope that one day, perhaps, your dream will come to pass.


End file.
